BOSTON — The Post piqued David Ortiz’s curiosity on Wednesday afternoon, as the slugger emerged from the Red Sox’s dugout and approached the field for batting practice before World Series Game 1 at Fenway Park.

I asked Big Papi if he had seen a list of other players who won three World Series as members of the Red Sox. “I haven’t seen it,” he replied. “Who’s on it?”

All guys from way back when, I explained. Dead guys. After all, the Red Sox didn’t win a single title from 1919 through 2003. So if the Sawx can top the Cardinals in this 2013 Fall Classic, then Ortiz would join an eclectic group headlined by … Babe Ruth.

“Hey!” Ortiz responded, smiling. And then he went on his way.

Thanks to the technicality of World Series rings not being distributed until 1922, a Red Sox triumph would make Ortiz the only player ever with three rings accumulated in Boston. Furthermore, joining Ruth in particular as a three-time Beantown champion would gall Yankees fans all the more. As I’ve learned from my coverage of Alex Rodriguez’s appeal hearing, many, many Yankees supporters are angry, ridiculously so, Ortiz doesn’t get more heat for allegations he used illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

The Red Sox won the World Series in 1912, 1915, 1916 and 1918 (as well as 1903). Two players, Harry Hooper and Heinie Wagner, played for all four winners in the 1910s. Eleven more — Hick Cady, Bill Carrigan, Larry Gardner, Olaf Henriksen, Dick Hoblitzell, Dutch Leonard, Duffy Lewis, Carl Mays, Everett Scott, Pinch Thomas, and Ruth — participated on three of those title-winning clubs.

Ortiz is the only remaining player from the 2004 Red Sox, who climbed out of a 3-0 American League Championship Series hole to upend the Yankees and then swept the Cardinals in the World Series. He, Clay Buchholz, Jacoby Ellsbury, Jon Lester and Dustin Pedroia played on the 2007 team. That institutional knowledge makes Ortiz the dean of his team.

“I think as every new player that has come here, whether it’s through the system or from another organization, they all look to him as the guy that’s paved the way, that has dealt with the challenges that are present here in Boston, that has also succeeded at the highest level,” Red Sox manager John Farrell said. “And he’s so open with his experiences, to maybe help a guy transition into this environment and this market. He’s been great for a lot of years doing that.”

At 37, Ortiz remains the game’s best designated hitter and has played himself into at least a conversation about his Hall of Fame viability. In some pockets of New York, such a discussion is blasphemy. I’ve communicated with many of you, either through email or on Twitter, who don’t understand why Ortiz doesn’t get more grief for failing his survey drug test in 2003.

The answer is, because that test doesn’t matter. Those tests had no individual discipline attached, and thanks to some understandable obfuscation by Major League Baseball and the Players Association, it isn’t even clear Ortiz indeed took an illegal PED. The bottom line is Ortiz’s personal rights were violated with that leak, just as your rights would be violated if you were promised confidentiality from your employer concerning medical information and it became public regardless.

Give it up already on that entire 2003 list seeing daylight. It should never happen and hopefully won’t, and even if it does, it wouldn’t give you the absoluteness you want because guys could beat tests then just as they did more recently by using products from Biogenesis.

You can suspect and point fingers and whisper or shout all you want. In the eyes of baseball, however, Ortiz is a zero-time offender. He never has failed a test that featured individual discipline, and he never has been charged with a non-analytical positive, either.

He’s good to go, and he has a chance to become The Babe’s brother in arms. And as is a natural occurrence in the baseball universe, the more beloved Ortiz becomes in New England, the more loathed he will be in The Bronx.